An oil well or a gas well produces a hydrocarbon product that burns when ignited. That is why hydrocarbon fuels are widely used in business, homes, vehicles and machines to power the same and produce heat and work. The hydrocarbon fuels can also inadvertently burn at the well site during drilling of the wells as well as production at the well site. It is not infrequent that a well will catch on, fire due to ignition of some of the hydrocarbon fuel that has escaped from the well equipment. The ignition of oil and gas at the well site can be caused by a spark generated by mechanical means or by static means, a flame, by lightning, or by persons intending to cause a fire or explosion. Often, well fires can be catastrophic and destroy not only the well itself but also surrounding wells and other structures. Hydrocarbon wells can be located close to communities and thus the safety of a well is of great concern to the community residents. A well fire can represent a loss that ranges in the millions of dollars in time, equipment, and structures, but also a substantial loss in the hydrocarbon resource itself.
At the present time there are different approaches in extinguishing hydrocarbon fires at gas or oil well sites. As can be appreciated, a gas well or an oil well can often be located at a remote area that is difficult to reach for firemen and fire fighting equipment. Various fire fighting vehicles or fixed fire fighting installations can be called upon to extinguish well fires, but often such techniques do not optimally handle well fires or well blowouts. While one group of machines can remove elements from the vicinity of the fire, another group can spray water to cool down the working area. Other examples well fire fighting techniques include employing explosives to cause a detonation in the immediate area of the fire in order to deplete it of oxygen and extinguish it, or plug the pipeline in an attempt to contain the fire. Other attempts include methods of capping the oil well while it is still under fire. Yet other attempts include spraying various chemicals or dry chemical powders on top or from the side of the fire at the well head, either from mobile platforms or fixed installations.
Another attempt for controlling blowouts at well sites has been the use of blowout preventers which are stacked above the well casing to, smash, pinch and scissor the drill pipe and close off the flow of the hydrocarbon fuel through the pipe. Also used is “Hydril” apparatus that is designed to close off the area around the drill pipe to prevent loss of the flow of the hydrocarbon product.
Further, an oil well fire requires many persons to be mobilized, making coordination of the individuals a difficult task that often results in slow and costly extinguishing and recovery operations that can further cause loss of life of those involved in working on or near the oil or gas well as well as the fire fighting equipment itself.
Hence, many of these well fire fighting techniques have been moderately successful, inefficient, costly, and often dangerous.
It can be seen that a need exists for a fire extinguishing system that overcomes the deficiencies and drawbacks of current oil/gas well fire extinguishing systems and methods. More particularly, what is needed is a system and method that can effectively prevent and/or immediately extinguish a potential oil well blowout or pressure fire before or after it reaches the surface. Yet another need exists for a fire control system that is located at the well site and can sense a situation where there is a fire, and immediately place the system into operation without the supervision of personnel. In addition, what is needed is a system that can be controlled either automatically or manually, can operate independently of or integrated with other fire extinguishing systems, and is cost effective and safe to install and, operate.